Tag Archives: transportation

In 1803, one of the first New England canals made Boston the undisputed commercial center of New England. Called ‘the Incredible Ditch,’ the Middlesex Canal allowed a barge to haul 30 tons of goods back and forth between Chelmsford (now ...

By the time John Clarke signed on to pilot the Mayflower on its journey to America, he had already managed a remarkably adventurous career. Born in 1575 in England, Clarke was an old hand at sailing to America by the ...

Opera houses didn’t become a feature of American cities and towns until after the Civil War, though they existed before the American Revolution. The first of the American opera houses is believed to be in Williamsburg, Va., and dates to ...

The history of New England’s post roads and their stagecoach stops mirror the history of the country. The roads date back to the Pequots who used the trails that grew into the post roads for generations; the same trails carried ...

Seeing Boston By Streetcar was one of the first films of the city ever made. It offers today's viewer a fascinating glimpse of the city’s smoky, busy streets. The streetcar takes the viewer past Jordan Marsh and along Boylston Street ...

The Kid in Upper 4 had a profound impact on travelers inconvenienced by the crowded, unreliable trains that carried passengers during World War II. He was an 18-year-old soldier and, unlike civilian passengers, he had a place to sleep -- ...

Early in the American Revolution,Silas Deane worked without salary and spent much of his own money persuading the French to send guns, ships and other supplies to the patriots. For his efforts he was called a traitor and a spy, ...

George Francis Train was an eccentric Bostonian who in 1871 traveled around the world in 80 days. That is, if you don't count the two months he spent in Paris working for the revolutionary cause. Train actually went around the ...

Francis Lovelace languished in the Tower of London in 1675, unaware he had created the Boston Post Road two years earlier and forever shaped New England. He had been the royal governor of New York, and he had sent ...

Ginery Twichell rode into legend on horseback in 1846 when he brought the news of the British elections from Boston to New York four hours faster than his rival who traveled by train and steamboat. His feat was made even ...